


and in the end, i'll always be there

by flipflop_diva



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Injury, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Pre-Relationship, Rescue Missions, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 17:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14194431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Tony told himself he just wanted to make sure she was okay.





	and in the end, i'll always be there

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



“Here’s a novel concept.” Rhodey put his crutches aside and lowered himself on to the couch beside Tony. “You could just call her instead of spending all day on every newspaper in the world trying to search for clues.”

“Pretty sure getting rid of her phone was the first thing she did,” Tony said immediately, and then he frowned as the rest of Rhodey’s words finally penetrated his brain. “And I’m not stalking her.”

“Sure you’re not. And don’t think I don’t know you couldn’t just track her down and get her new phone number if you really wanted it.”

“And how would I do that, since you seem to be so smart?”

“I don’t know.” Rhodey stretched, raising his arms above his head. “Maybe by activating the tracker in her widow’s bite that you put there because you and she both know she’ll never get rid of it.”

Tony felt his mouth fall open slightly.

“Oh, I know things, buddy,” Rhodey said.

“Do I want to know?”

“I know you two have been hooking up pretty much since Pepper took off. And I know you both pretend that it means nothing. But I know you care about her. And I know she cares about you.”

“Not as much as she cares about Steve, apparently.”

Oops, did he sound bitter? He wasn’t supposed to sound bitter. But Rhodey was rolling his eyes. 

“She didn’t want you two idiots to kill each other. If you’d both listened to her, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“We’re not arguing about this,” Tony said.

“We’re not arguing at all. I’m just saying, activate the damn tracker and go find your girl. If you want her back.”

Tony opened his mouth to interject but Rhodey held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know, she hurt you. You hurt her too. You both win for being assholes. You both lose. You want her back? Go get her back. And now, I am going back to my crossword puzzle.”

Rhodey slowly pushed himself to his feet and picked back up his crutches, hobbling over to the stack of newspapers lying on the floor from where Tony had discarded them earlier.

“Since when do you do crossword puzzles?”

“Things change, Tony. You gotta keep up!”

•••

It would be simple really. To do as Rhodey suggested. To activate the tracker. To find out where she was. To make sure she was okay.

That was what he really wanted, right? To make sure she was okay. To make sure she was safe.

To not feel this weight around his neck that maybe he yelled at her and caused her to run and sent her into danger.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew they were after her. The KGB. Other people who held a grudge. Probably some Hydra operatives that were still out there. And he had sent her out there, alone, to figure it out on her own.

He knew she was strong and capable and a survivor, but if she got hurt … if something he did got her hurt …

In the end, he did it. With guilt weighing him down, he activated the tracker. Found her hiding in the middle of the countryside somewhere in Central Europe. He breathed easier.

That night he dreamed about people coming after her. About men with guns grabbing her and forcing her to come with them. In the dream, he flew toward her, to try and get her first, but he couldn’t reach her. He watched them take her. And he woke up out of breath and with sweat dripping down his face.

It was a dream, he told himself, but he couldn’t shake the images; he couldn’t shake the feeling.

He found himself at the computer, when he was supposed to be out saving the world or something, watching the tracker, following its little blips of motion.

Until he was watching it one night — early still for him but in the middle of the night for her. And it started to move. Not slowly either. His heart clenched. He watched the screen, panic filling him as he tried to track exactly where she was headed … a dirt road, a deserted area … and then it went dead. The tracker went dead. And he had to hold a hand to his mouth to not throw up.

Natasha would never have destroyed the tracker.

“But how do you know?” Rhodey was asking not much later, but he was throwing on clothes and grabbing guns.

“Because she’s the smartest woman I have ever met, and there is no way in hell she didn’t know I didn’t put that tracker in her widow’s bite. And there is no way in hell she didn’t know I turned it on. The only way it’s gone is someone else found it. And destroyed it.”

They were in the air not long after, Rhodey trying to be the voice of calm and reason. “We’ll find her,” he kept saying.

They found her. It took three days. They found the safehouse she had been staying at, found the words she scratched in the dirt before they took her, tracked the people who took her down to an empty compound in the middle of nowhere and finally found her, chained to a wall, gagged and half-conscious, both arms broken, full of bruises and barely breathing.

She woke up in a hospital two days later, jerking away with a look of terror in her eyes, until she realized Tony was there, and he had his arms around her, comforting her, pulling her against him as gently as he could.

“They’re after me,” she whispered into his chest.

“Not anymore,” he told her.

They were able to take her back to New York with them a day later. Representatives of the U.N. disapproved but being that she had almost been assassinated and tortured, they relented. Tony sat next to her on the Quinjet the entire ride back, holding her in his arms like he would never let her go.

“Why?” she finally asked him, and she stared at him with wide, green eyes that looked more vulnerable than he had ever seen them.

“Because when I watched you leave,” he told her softly. “I promised myself that no matter how you felt about me, I would always make sure you were safe. And I always keep my promises.”

She didn’t say anything for a few moments, just studied his face with those big green eyes. And then she leaned in, pressed her lips against his, just for a quick second.

“Thank you,” she said. “I owe you.”

He curled his arms a little tighter around her. He didn’t tell her she was all the thanks he needed, but maybe he would find a way to tell her later.

Scratch that. 

He would definitely find a way to tell her later.


End file.
